FOOTBALL ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10574, 27 January 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

FOOTBALL ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

_____ D ;q HOW THE AMERICAN COLLEGES

PLAI THE STRENUOUS GAME. Master Rosevelt, having had his nose broken, Mr Roosevelt has with presidential aud parental eloquence denounced American football as brutal, and Columbia University has decided to drop such a cripple-making sport out of its educational curriculum. From such portentous signs a very pretty agitation against football seems to be shaping m the States, but it is doubtful if the movement will go far. Even the thunder from White House did not prevent 40,000 of America's elite, which included judges, Senators, millionaires, and society damsels, from shouting themselves hoarse at the Vale-Harvard, which for stvenuousness is the apotheosis of the American game. And even with the casual ity list before one's startled eyes it would m reality be unfair to judge American football from the English standard. To begin with, hot even an Irish international could survive ten minutes at the American ganie. At this, the British player may ciitrl up a scornful lip, but brief experience of the American scrum would convince one of the fact. The whole system ( of Amorican sport is utterly different to a British idea. The American loves a game characteristic of his nations hurricane-like and pitiless energy. In England, the football season ambles along for five months. In the States it is hut of six weeks' duration. And that is the very limit of human endurance. COLLEGE TEAMS. It is the college teams, of course, which count, and the training of them is a vast- financial undertaking, coupled with the severest physical conditions that man has yet devised for sport. Yale, for instance, spends £12,000 on the training of its football team, of which big sum £3,000 goes to the head coach alone. He is an athlete of worldwide renown. His colossal salary, of course, makes him a professional, but he loses no social caste from this. Things are different m America* •-. Undot the head coac-i"- are socond coaches. Ejich man m the team, indeed, has his own coach and his own trainer, who never leave him.

On the first day of tho season a hundred picked men are trotted round the field m isquads. They are trotted round the field five or six times, and then have to hurl themselves on to the grass and roll ovej.. Afterwards they are taken to the "training house,' and massaged ; but m spite of this they can hardly move on the following day. All the same; they have to fkce' the "dummy." This is a sand bag the size and weight of a heavy man, which is suspended from what looks very much like the bar of a goal. First tne mon have to run, and, jumping from a set take-oIT, hurtle through the air, and "tackle"' the "dummy." A pleasant arrangement of iron on the top of the "dummy," which is hard when ono comes m contact with-it, effectively inculcates the golden principle' of "tackling low." BRUISED AND BATTERED. Bruised and battered, the men are trotted b&ck to the field, where Ib "code numbers or arrangements of letters to exercise," and this is where quicknesß of brain comes m. The game is controlled by one of the back players, who, instead of shouting a plain-spoken order which the other side could understand, yells what sounds like a telephone call. All over the field the coaches are yelling little squads of men. And woe unto the man who is not up m his "book." *< At the table the trainers watch the men as cats watch mice. They alter the diet of the men with scientific care, even juggling with ounces. The strain is awful—all the more awful because playing for the team is no excuse for falling behind wjth book work. At Harvard there is an examination every six weeks, and the man who fails to get 60 per cent, of marks goes back to what is called the "probationary" stage, and so automatically is knocked out of the team. When! the trial games are over, and the team lines up for the match, the men are pretty hard to kill. Otherwise the death rate would be higher, 'lhe men are as hard as prize-fighters. Their muscles are so trained that a blow which would slay an average man i simply bounces off them. Not that hitting ia officially; allowed. Though the teams number only eleven men, the theory underlying tho American game is the Rugby one. That is about all one can say of it. According to this season's rules, there are six niien m the "line,' and four players at the back them. Wheft they line up, the men all crouch like sprinters about to run. And they crouch as clos§ as they can get to the ground all through the game. It is a life-saving precaution. - DEADLY AVALANCHE. The '.centre" who has won the toss holds tho ball between his legs. Then he throws it through them to the man behind mm. The man starts away, and m a minute an avalanche of fierce humanity has dragged him down. Theie are few runs and little passing. The tackling is too unerring, too deadly. The field is diyided into chequers, each five yarc^s square. , If m three attempts a team can push and struggle with the ball five yards forward, they are doing well. >

If a man comes for you, you can let. him run his iface against your open palm at the end of a stiffly outstretched arm. Only the astounding muscles on the back of his neck can save him from a broken spine. Sometimes when the face arrives, it finds the hand clenched and some driving power behind it. . Or if a man is known to have a huri shoulder, ! it is tho correct thing to devote every effort t6 making that shoulder worse. Again, if a man has had his head battered, it is a good thing to batter it more. This is a fairly easy thing for a knde to do m ft "Bevum..'

On the! linos wait the stretcher parties* the doctors, ahd the substitutes. A team can play, a hundred substitutes* but it is reckoned not to pay. A substitute is nearly always a Jong way be* hind a man m tho team, and it is cpmmonly held that a team man can play better when half dead than a substitute wholly alive. Meantime the Senators, the Congressmen, the judges, tho millionaires, and the girls with flushed faces, disordered hair, and flags m their vehement hands, have yelled' themselves pretty well into a state of collapse. In tho American breast the gladiatorial spirit is strong.. And the "cheering sections" keep that spirit at (fever heat. These "cheering, sections,"! hundreds strong, are led by men with; megaphones.